Persephone
by The Cumaean Sibyl
Summary: Percy always wanted to be a girl...


Author's Note – I do **not** consider this a genderswitch fic. This fic deals with issues of being transgendered, not about a magic spell or potion that forces a character to change sex much to the hilarity of all. There will be slash, femslash, and het in this so if that offends you then do not read. This is set in Percy's fifth year (Book 1).

_Persephone_

Percy Weasley would be the first to tell anyone that he was probably the most boring person on the planet. His favorite pastime was reading, he spent the time between classes organizing his notes, and he had never lost House points or received a single detention in his entire school career. But he was now about to do something so shocking, so scandalous that even his mother, the woman who had reared the likes of Fred and George without even flinching, would faint upon hearing it.

Percy nervously eyed the white marble that adorned the Prefect's Bathroom for the first time. Although he had been excited to finally, for the first time in his life, have a bathroom all to himself, it had never occurred to him beforehand that the Prefect's Bathroom would be the perfect place to… _experiment_.

After suspiciously glancing up at the mermaid portrait (who continued to snore loudly while sprawled on top of the rock she usually sat upon), Percy cautiously made his way to the large gilt mirror that hung from across the sunken tub. The deep scowl that always appeared whenever he saw his reflection immediately marred his face. It wasn't as though he was terrible to look at. If he was being completely objective he would even go so far to describe himself nice-looking at times. Sure, he was too tall and too thin, too pale and too prissy, but all-in-all it could be much worse. No, what Percy hated was the… _masculinity_. The Adam's apple, the angular jaw, the broad shoulders… On other boys it was alright. It was even handsome. On Percy, it was just… just…

It wasn't right.

Out of all the Weasley boys, Percy was the only one who was willing to spend time with Ginny doing things that she liked to do. With Percy, Ginny was allowed to be a girl in ways that were not tolerated by Ron, or Fred, or George. It had created a strong bond between them. Mum always praised Percy for spending time with Ginny and remarking on how good of a brother he was to put up with her girlish antics. Of course Percy pretended to be the long-suffering older brother putting up with his littler sister's girly games and talk. It wouldn't do for the rest of the family to realize that he was living vicariously through Ginny.

It was just… he wanted to be a girl. A fire-red blush blossomed across his face at the thought. He had never truly admitted it to himself what was wrong before, not even in his own head. But that was what he wanted. What he had always wanted. For as far back as he could remember Percy had always felt uncomfortable in his own body. When he was young he would jealously wonder to himself why Ginny always got the dresses and the dolls. But even at a young age Percy knew that what he was feeling was… abnormal, to say the least. He knew that he was a boy and that he had to do boyish things. It was wrong for a boy to want to be a girl. He knew that it would be much better for him in the long run to keep these thoughts to himself.

He had suppressed these undesirable feelings for so long that he had no idea how to deal with them. They had remained hidden deep inside himself; or, well, they had been until last year in his Muggle Studies class. Whatever the other students may say about it being a soft class Percy didn't care. That class had shown Percy a whole different world that he never knew existed. For the first time in his life he didn't feel quite so alone. Now that he knew that there were others like him, he finally felt brave enough to face himself.

Percy had made this discovery during one of Professor Burbage's lessons. Professor Burbage was teaching about Muggle literature when she read aloud a poem by the ancient author Sappho of Lesbos. At the end of the poem one of Percy's classmates confusedly asked that he had thought Sappho was a woman. When Professor Burbage explained that she was the student pressed her to clarify why she was writing love poems to other women. Percy remembered how the professor had just stared at the class for a whole minute as though they had all grown a second head before answering. "Well, she was a lesbian," she said. The students were completely baffled by this explanation, much to the chagrin of their professor. "You know! A lesbian!" Professor Burbage snapped. "Gay! Queer! Homosexual! She was sexually involved with other women!" Then they finally got it. From what Percy heard, the professor had apparently received a hundred Howlers from angry parents demanding that she be fired for teaching her students deviant and unnatural behavior. That lesson, however, spurred Percy to do more research into Muggle sexuality (discreetly, of course). He had learned about what the Muggles called "transsexuals" and "transgendered". Finally, he knew that there were others like him.

Professor Burbage wasn't fired, but there was an official inquiry spearheaded by the school governors. The governors let the professor off based on the fact that she was Muggleborn and it had been her first year teaching, so long as she never said something so wildly scandalous again. Percy was immensely glad that she had been allowed to continue to teach. He was, in a way, indebted to her. Of course, she didn't know that and he was never, ever going to tell her (although he was quite certain that if he ever did confide in his professor that she would be understanding… or at least he liked to think so).

Percy peered critically at his reflection as he raised his wand. He decided to start off with a simple hair-lengthening charm at first. With a slight wave his hair grew. The curly red hair grew past his chin, down his shoulders, and ended at his elbows. The longest his Mum had ever let his hair grow was just a little past his ears. Percy smiled as the long hair had the immediate effect of feminizing his face. Plus, it kind of reminded him of Penelope's hair. Percy immediately began to work on Transfiguring his features to resemble a girl's. It was difficult spellwork; it was too bad that he wasn't a Metamorphmagus.

Eventually, Percy could stand back to admire his handiwork. He looked like a girl. And what he felt was a pretty one at that. Although still tall and lithe, Percy was now delicate and soft-looking with an actual woman's chest. But he still resembled the old Percy in a way, like he was Percy's long-lost twin sister or something. Percy glanced down at himself, his frown returning. There was only one thing left to do…

Percy had no idea how to go about Transfiguring himself from a male to an actual female. That was one thing McGonagall had never taught them in class. Still, he was the best student in his year and, he had no way of describing it, but he felt _driven_ to try. Even if it meant having to go to Madam Promfrey later, he just couldn't stay a boy.

For the better part of two hours Percy experimented with different spells to figure out what would work and what wouldn't. At last he could definitely state that he was no longer a _he_ but a _she_.

Percy admired her handiwork in the mirror. One would never know that she was actually a boy. Of course, she lacked some things that girls had, such as ovaries and a uterus. It was absolutely impossible to Transfigure something that one could not see and, although Percy was willing to do many questionable things to become a girl, she wasn't willing to cut herself open.

Percy jumped nearly a foot in the air when a loud banging was heard on the bathroom door. "Whoever's in there needs to get out! You've been in there for hours! Other people want to use the bathroom too!" The mermaid in the portrait gave a squawk before falling into the sea after having been roused to abruptly. Percy ignored the painting however, as she dove for her clothing and began to hastily pull them over her head. There was no time to Transfigure herself back into a boy, so she would just have to hide what she had done as well as possible. After pulling her robe on over her uniform, Percy grabbed her wand and with a muttered "_Diffindo_" sheared off her long locks. It wasn't even remotely neat and her hair now resembled that of Harry Potter's than the haircut she had been sporting before her little experiment. But it was close enough. With a quick glance at the mirror, Percy determined that no one would realize what she had done, so long as no one looked to closely. _And they never do,_ Percy thought to herself before taking a deep breath and squaring her shoulders. It was time to face the world. She hoped no one would figure out what she had done.


End file.
